Sri Lanka: Days 13-14

Travel diaries for Thursday, April 10 to Friday, April 11 written Saturday, April 12

Thursday, April 10:

We left the hotel in the morning for a 2ish hour drive from Galle to the Colombo airport. Daniel and I would be flying to Chennai (the fifth-most populous city in India, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu) for a quick 24-hour trip to meet up with some of my coworkers who I’ve known for three years, but never met in person!

On the way to the airport, we stopped at a supermarket for some coffee and chocolate eclair and chicken samosa (breakfast of champions), and we had a quick bathroom break at a mall type thing where the restrooms charged 40 rupees to enter (approximately 13 cents).

We arrived at the airport with a comfortable amount of time to hang in a Priority Pass lounge for a bit. Aparna had told us a couple days ago that whenever she goes on vacation, her dad always gets jealous and goes on his own vacation. Since Tosh & Aparna were vacationing with us in the east and south, Aparna’s dad of course set off on his own holiday this week. While chilling in the lounge, we got a Whatsapp message from Aparna who had stopped to see her parents on their way back into Colombo that said: “My dad as expected – How was your trip? Then without waiting for our answer – ours was way better than that!”

The flight to Chennai was a quick 90 minutes, and during that time I finished reading Anil’s Ghost. Even though it was a short flight and we were in Economy class, we were all given a hot sandwich, which was basically like a flaky hot pocket filled with some kind of spicy cabbage stuffing. At the Chennai airport, there was no line at all for customs, and we were met by a driver sent by our hotel who was holding a sign with my name on it – I think that’s the first time I’ve experienced that! We chilled for a few hours at the hotel, which was a super fancy resort only ten minutes from the airport that my coworkers had recommended for me. Daniel had a workout and we each had a shower. Around 6:45pm, two of my coworkers, Vasanth and Antony, met us at our hotel.

The five of us were driven by a company-provided driver to another very fancy hotel where we had a 3-hour, 13-course meal. Some courses included lobster, seabass, pork belly, and even lamb brain! Since three out of five of these guys don’t live in Chennai and don’t often travel in, this was the first time many of them had seen each other in over a year, so I was glad my visit could bring everyone together.

The food was overall good, though to my slight dismay, we happened to arrive in Chennai on a dry day, meaning no alcohol was served pretty much anywhere in the state of Tamil Nadu. Dry days are apparently not very common in Tamil Nadu (they’re fairly common in Sri Lanka), so this was pretty bad luck. This one was in celebration of the holiday Mahavir Jayanti, which commemorates the birth of Mahavira, who was Buddha’s cousin (I think…) and also an important figure in Jainism. Without alcohol, I felt we were doing this social interaction on hard mode, but overall I think we nailed it as a group. We chatted about some of the differences between Indian and American culture and cuisine, briefly caught up on what I’ve missed at work while I’ve been out (though I didn’t want to spend too much time talking about work), bonded over shared favorite TV shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, and generally got to know each other better as people. It was lovely.

There were lots of interesting tidbits and anecdotes shared, but in the interest of brevity, I’ll just mention one that was particularly funny. Antony was talking about how he went to San Diego once for a conference, and since he was in the U.S., of course he wanted to try a hamburger, so he got one for breakfast. (The consumption of beef is banned in most states in India, though India is actually a leading exporter of beef since they do have a ton of cows, and milk is extremely central to Indian diets generally.) After his delicious breakfast hamburger, he decided, what the hell, I’ll get another hamburger for lunch. By dinner, he was thinking he’d probably eaten enough meat that day, so he decided to go with a lighter option and order a cheeseburger – and he was totally shocked to find out a cheeseburger also has meat on it. He thought it was just cheese.

Okay one more tidbit, less funny but interesting- India had TWO YEARS of lockdown for COVID. During this time, there was a strict curfew and very restricted travel. People got stranded in cities they didn’t live in for months. It was a legit lockdown. I can’t believe I didn’t know they had that!

Friday, April 11:

After the very long and enjoyable meal, we got back to the hotel and fell asleep around midnight. The next morning, Daniel and I were again driven by the company-provided driver to a little breakfast restaurant to meet up with the rest of the guys. We had some filtered coffee, which is a style of coffee preparation where you steep the grounds in boiled milk and add sugar. It was quite delicious. From there, we were driven about ten minutes to a Hindu temple. We had been told to dress conservatively, which we did, and when we got there, we had to remove our shoes before entering. The temple is basically a large courtyard area in the middle of a busy city block, so we were slightly concerned about leaving Daniel’s nice pair of colorful Jordans among a pile of random sandals and flip-flops, but Ankit assured us no one would take them, and he ended up being right about that. The temple we went to was built in 2002, so it’s not particularly ancient, but it was built to be basically a mini replica of six other temples that are quite ancient and far away, so that people in Chennai can get the experience of going to those more official temples without the hassle of traveling. Ankit compared it to the fact that there is a mini Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas.

After exploring the temple and learning a bit about Hinduism, we were driven about 30 minutes to a South Indian restaurant that Mukesh really likes, and it was super delicious. We had mutton biryani, garlic naan, rice with ghee and dhal powder, spicy soup, fish curry, sweet lassi, carrot fritters, fried chicken bites, and more. The food was served onto large banana leaves instead of plates, and we ate with our hands. After lunch, the guys presented us with a gift, which was a fairly hefty metal sculpture of the Srivilliputhur Temple, which is a very tall temple “of great architecture and supernatural power” (according to Vasanth) and Tamil Nadu’s Emblem. I thought that was very sweet.

We made a quick stop at the hotel to grab our bags, then headed to the airport. In another very sweet gesture, all five of them accompanied us to the airport to see us off. There was a bit of panic when the security at the airport wouldn’t let us in, since Daniel and I didn’t have our boarding passes. I tried to explain that we needed to print them inside (which was what we had done for literally every flight so far), but the guards didn’t try to explain or help us at all, they just wouldn’t let us in without our tickets. Eventually, after running around asking a bunch of random people, we figured out that showing the confirmation email of the booking should be sufficient. I showed the email to one of the door guards, and he took a dickishly long time contemplating the email before giving a very slight nod to indicate we could enter the airport. (Indian police, like cops everywhere but I think even moreso, have reputations for being extreme assholes.) I waved goodbye to my five coworkers, who all seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to be trapped in India after all.

We made it through check-in and security with no further issues and chilled for a bit in a Priority Pass lounge before flying back to Colombo. Aparna and Etosha were on a boat in the ocean celebrating a friend’s birthday, so we got an Uber back to Galle Face, the hotel we had stayed at the first time around in Colombo. This time, we got the romantic luxury suite package, which includes welcome champagne and chocolates, daily breakfast on the balcony, a three-course dinner on one of the nights (we’ll do that tonight), a big jacuzzi tub in the middle of the room, and a couple other perks. Unfortunately, Saturday and Sunday are dry days in Sri Lanka due to the new year, so we won’t be able to take advantage of the free happy hour drinks that come with our fancy room today (Saturday) or tomorrow, but we were able to make it to happy hour before it ended on Friday for a couple free drinks. We decided to be slightly ridiculous and order Dominoes delivery, and overall had an amazingly luxurious night after a quick whirlwind trip to India.

Go to next: Sri Lanka Days 15-17